What is IRC?

IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is a chat protocol that allows us to communicate with all the networking/computer societies on the Intersocs network.

What The Fuck Is Intersocs?

Intersocs is a network of IRC “peers” that facilitates communication with the following societies:

Redbrick (DCU Netsoc)

TCD Netsoc

DUCSS (Dublin University Computer Science Society)

Skynet (UL Netsoc)

DIT Netsoc

UCD Netsoc (Coming Soon…)

NCI Netsoc (Coming Soon…)

NUIG CompSoc (Coming Soon…)

Logging in (SSH)

The first thing we’re going to need to do, is actually log into Leela (our primary user server). To do this, we’ll use Secure Shell(SSH).

Mac OSX / Linux

SSH clients come preinstalled on all versions of Mac OSX and Linux. To start using it, open up your terminal/console/command prompt of some kind, replace
USERNAME with your username and execute the following command:

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ssh USERNAME@leela.netsoc.co

You’ll then be prompted for your password.

Windows

You’ll need to install some kind of SSH client for windows. We recommend using PuTTY.

Screen

The
screen command is what’s known as a \texit{terminal multiplexer} (or “mux”). What it does is it creates multiple windows for you to run different commands or leave commands running. It’s useful if you want to leave something connected but still want to be able to log out.

We’re going to use screen to keep a permanently connected irc client running for whenever you log in.

Our
irc command

When you log in, you’re automatically given a
.profile file with some predefined commands. One of those commands is
irc.

What happens is that when you log in, we automagically create a screen for you (if it isn’t running already) and we alias} “\inlinecode{irc” to attach you to that screen.

Manually Creating A Screen

You can also manually create screens yourself. Below is part of the example
.profile we give everyone. You only need to concern yourself with lines 2 and 5.

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if!screen-list|grep-q"irc";then

screen-dmS irc bash-c'weechat'

fi

alias irc="screen -r irc"

screen-dmS irc bash-c'weechat'

Here we’re:

creating a screen

telling it to run in the background

naming it “irc”

executing the command
bash-c'weechat' – you can leave this blank and it will run a bash shell by default

alias irc="screen -r irc"

This line simply aliases the command
ircx to command
screen-rirc. We can attach ourselves to any named screen using the syntax
screen-rNAME

Okay… I want to leave. Now what?

To detach from any screen, simply hit
ctrl +
a +
d and you’ll be returned to your original terminal.

IRC

This is it, the bit you’ve all been waiting for.

Once you’ve connected to your IRC screen (that’s running Weechat), you will need to connect to our netsoc server with the following command:

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/connect netsoc.co

Congrats, you’re now connected! Start out by typing
/join uccnetsoc and
/join intersocs

When you’re done

Simply
ctrl +
a +
d to detach from your screen and type
logout to leave the server.